Today was our 24th wedding anniversary, and as anybody can see, we look exactly the same as we did then. But JW, present at the time, has changed a bit.
Sorry to say he has beaten me twice 2-0 this weekend and its becoming a nasty habit. Both games were 21-19 today.
Yesterday evening we went to Victoria and Alan's for her 50th birthday party but I forgot to take the camera.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
This week
Monday
Very well-attended and successful Bahrain seminar alread mentioned, see below.
Lunch with Dr Alexandra Argenti to discuss her proposal for a Kurdish language course at SOAS
Meeting in the afternoon with Dr Ahmed Türk who talked about the crackdown on the Democratic Society Party in Turkey, of which he is President. The authorities had arrested 51 members of the DSP Assembly, 3 Depiuties and some 100 District officials, with more being taken in as we spoke. The majority are being charged with membership of the PKK, an illegal organisation. Dr Türk said the DSP had always tried to engage in the political process and still aimed for a peaceful and democratic solution to the question of Kurdish identity and self-government. In the Kurdish region all the other parties had presented a united front against the DSP, but the Party had nevertheless doubled the number of towns they held. fter their success, the media had started to discuss a solution to 'the Kurdish problem', and the PKK had declared a ceasefire, leaving room for political initiatives. But Ankara had refused to engage in a dialogue, and now these arrests were likely to trigger firther conflict. Now was the moment to prevent further escalation and explore means of granting the Kurdish people their lingustic and cultural rights (supposedly guaranteed by the OSCE), and the right to manage their own affairs in their own region.
Wednesday
Select Committee in the morning, taking evidence from Sir James Sassoon, former President of the Financial Action Task Force, an international organisation set up to combat money laundering and the financing of international terrorism (AML/CFT in the jargon) to which 34 states belong including all western European states. There are other regional organisations with similar functions including standard-setting, monitoring compliance and identifying threats, and one of the questions that interested me was the justification for having a different organisation (MONEYVAL) covering eastern states including the EU members that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, each with its own Secretariat and decision-making structures, when in fact the standards set by the two organisations and their monitoring mechanisms were virtually identical. We will have to see whether the Committee found Sir James's answers on this point convincing. He was certainly a very informative witness.
At Question time, I fielded a question by my LibDem colleague Lindsay Northover on the current situation in Sri Lanka. The military operations against the enclave held by the LTTE seemed to be drawing to a close, with 122,000 civilians having by then escaped, and my question dealt with the offer by President Rajapaksa to send an all-Party Parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka, and the need to mobilise international humanitarian resources in support of agencies such as UNICEF and the Red Cross, to rehabilitate the civilians.
In the afternoon we had Third Reading of Borders Bill. Some changes had been made by agreement, but the Minister threatened - in the nicest possible way - to reverse the vote in which the Tories and LibDems had inserted a provision allowing those within 12 months of applying for indefinite leave to remain, to continue along that path.
Thursday
Tajammul Hussain came to lunch, the first time I had seen him since he had returned from Pakistan. We talked about his visit, and of course about his former employers the UNHCR.
Then Lindsay and I went to the Guards Chapel for David Saunders' memorial service. I hadn't been in touch with him from the time I left the Welsh Guards in 1951, to the middle of last year when he invited me and Lindsay to the Remembrance Day service and afterwards to lunch (see posting at the time). After that he and Trish came to dinner with us, but then, tragically, he died suddenly after an operation to fit a pacemaker.
He had a splendid send-off, with the band of the Coldstream Guards and the Guards Chapel choir including the old favourite Welsh hymn Bread of Heaven.
Friday
This morning I had a blood test at King's followed by an appointment with the haematology consultant, a periodic routine since I had the lung tumour removed in April 2006, and a chest X-ray this time as well. Nowadays the consultant writes to the GP afterwards and copies the letter to the patient, a great improvement on the old days when it was difficult to get them to say anything.
Then a game of ping-pong with JW, 2-0 to me this time! He made the excuse that he had a late night out, but I may have been slightly more on form that in our last few encounters. I still have to record the previous two, which were 0-2 and 1-1, making the total 104-103 on his favour.
Very well-attended and successful Bahrain seminar alread mentioned, see below.
Lunch with Dr Alexandra Argenti to discuss her proposal for a Kurdish language course at SOAS
Meeting in the afternoon with Dr Ahmed Türk who talked about the crackdown on the Democratic Society Party in Turkey, of which he is President. The authorities had arrested 51 members of the DSP Assembly, 3 Depiuties and some 100 District officials, with more being taken in as we spoke. The majority are being charged with membership of the PKK, an illegal organisation. Dr Türk said the DSP had always tried to engage in the political process and still aimed for a peaceful and democratic solution to the question of Kurdish identity and self-government. In the Kurdish region all the other parties had presented a united front against the DSP, but the Party had nevertheless doubled the number of towns they held. fter their success, the media had started to discuss a solution to 'the Kurdish problem', and the PKK had declared a ceasefire, leaving room for political initiatives. But Ankara had refused to engage in a dialogue, and now these arrests were likely to trigger firther conflict. Now was the moment to prevent further escalation and explore means of granting the Kurdish people their lingustic and cultural rights (supposedly guaranteed by the OSCE), and the right to manage their own affairs in their own region.
Wednesday
Select Committee in the morning, taking evidence from Sir James Sassoon, former President of the Financial Action Task Force, an international organisation set up to combat money laundering and the financing of international terrorism (AML/CFT in the jargon) to which 34 states belong including all western European states. There are other regional organisations with similar functions including standard-setting, monitoring compliance and identifying threats, and one of the questions that interested me was the justification for having a different organisation (MONEYVAL) covering eastern states including the EU members that were formerly part of the Soviet bloc, each with its own Secretariat and decision-making structures, when in fact the standards set by the two organisations and their monitoring mechanisms were virtually identical. We will have to see whether the Committee found Sir James's answers on this point convincing. He was certainly a very informative witness.
At Question time, I fielded a question by my LibDem colleague Lindsay Northover on the current situation in Sri Lanka. The military operations against the enclave held by the LTTE seemed to be drawing to a close, with 122,000 civilians having by then escaped, and my question dealt with the offer by President Rajapaksa to send an all-Party Parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka, and the need to mobilise international humanitarian resources in support of agencies such as UNICEF and the Red Cross, to rehabilitate the civilians.
In the afternoon we had Third Reading of Borders Bill. Some changes had been made by agreement, but the Minister threatened - in the nicest possible way - to reverse the vote in which the Tories and LibDems had inserted a provision allowing those within 12 months of applying for indefinite leave to remain, to continue along that path.
Thursday
Tajammul Hussain came to lunch, the first time I had seen him since he had returned from Pakistan. We talked about his visit, and of course about his former employers the UNHCR.
Then Lindsay and I went to the Guards Chapel for David Saunders' memorial service. I hadn't been in touch with him from the time I left the Welsh Guards in 1951, to the middle of last year when he invited me and Lindsay to the Remembrance Day service and afterwards to lunch (see posting at the time). After that he and Trish came to dinner with us, but then, tragically, he died suddenly after an operation to fit a pacemaker.
He had a splendid send-off, with the band of the Coldstream Guards and the Guards Chapel choir including the old favourite Welsh hymn Bread of Heaven.
Friday
This morning I had a blood test at King's followed by an appointment with the haematology consultant, a periodic routine since I had the lung tumour removed in April 2006, and a chest X-ray this time as well. Nowadays the consultant writes to the GP afterwards and copies the letter to the patient, a great improvement on the old days when it was difficult to get them to say anything.
Then a game of ping-pong with JW, 2-0 to me this time! He made the excuse that he had a late night out, but I may have been slightly more on form that in our last few encounters. I still have to record the previous two, which were 0-2 and 1-1, making the total 104-103 on his favour.
Video of the '62 Orpington by-election declaration.
With many thanks to the BBC for this clip, which used to be on their site On This Day. Perhaps they would put in back there by popular demand, before the 50th anniversary in less than three years' time?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BV_S9C5zeg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BV_S9C5zeg
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Bangladesh seminar, Monday April 21
Bangladesh: the new government’s programme
Committee Room 3, House of Lords, 11.00 April 21, 2009
Introductory remarks by Eric Avebury
This is our first seminar since the elections at the end of last year brought the Awami League Grand Alliance to power with an overwhelming majority. Its also the first we have held jointly with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh, and I am delighted to share the platform with the chair of the Group, Baroness Uddin, and a galaxy of. eminent speakers who will be looking at the new government’s programme and the current situation from a number of different viewpoints.
My first and most agreeable duty is to congratulate the people of Bangladesh and the former caretaker government on holding free, fair and peaceful elections with a massive turnout, far above the levels attained in the UK. The crucial promise in the AL manifesto was the establishment of good governance, but both parties were committed to the independence of the judiciary, strong measures against corruption, and the suppression of terrorism. Whether there can be the degree of collaboration between government and opposition that’s necessary to make Parliamentary democracy work, an ingredient lacking in the winner take all past, is still doubtful and I look forward to hearing what is said on that.
Is it sensible to evict the leader of the opposition from the house she has occupied since the assassination of her husband 28 years ago, whatever the legal position may be? A magnanimous attitude might help to secure the approval by the opposition of the reforms that are likely to be needed in the paramilitary forces, when the committee of inquiry reports in a couple of weeks time on the rising in the BDR. There have been mutinies before in the Ansar as well as the BDR, but the merciless slaughter of senior army officers was unprecedented, and the Pilkhana massacre raises questions about the whole system of supplementary armed forces; not only whether the BDF should be restructured or disbanded, but what should be the functions and relationships to the army of the RAB, the Ansar and the border guards as well
The government had declared that killings in custody were no longer tolerated, and it did seem that RAB had turned over a new leaf . But this month has seen a ‘cross-fire’ death, like the hundreds that have occurred in the five years of RAB’s existence, and six of the key witnesses to the Pilkhana massacre have also died mysteriously. The forces of law and order need to be utterly reliable and above suspicion when they are grappling with severe threats arising from organised crime and terrorism.
In a few days’ time a delegation of Home Office and FCO officials will be in Dhaka, to sign a long-delayed anti-terror deal with the government of Bangladesh. They need to be assured that the rights of suspects are upheld, and that confessions or witness statements aren’t being extorted by the use of torture. Our own government’s complicity in acts of torture committed abroad is already being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner following allegations in the case of Binyam Mohamed, and we need to be scrupulously careful, particularly where British terrorists are arrested in Bangladesh, that evidence of their activities is not tainted.
At our previous seminar last October 7 Sheikh Hasina reiterated her commitment to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997, and emphasised the importance of the Land Commission. These policies were in the AL Manifesto; as co-chair of the CHT Commission I discussed them with the Prime Minister when I was in Dhaka two months ago, and we look forward to concrete progress before the CHTC next visits Bangladesh in the summer.
The AL Manifesto promises that terrorism, discriminatory treatment and human rights violations against religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous people would come to an end permanently. There is to be equal opportunity in access to public services, though it remains to be seen how this is to be enforced, and what remedies are to be provided for individuals who still encounter discrimination on grounds of their ethnic origin, religion, language or nationality. Any discriminatory laws and other arrangements are to be repealed, and in education and employment, there is a promise of facilities to remedy the disadvantage experienced by religious minorities and indigenous people.
At the UN’s Review of Bangladesh in February, there were criticisms of the treatment of other indigenous peoples, of religious and ethnic minorities, and of women. There are six requests outstanding from the Human Rights Council for invitations, including one from the Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom, submitted five years ago, but still with no date set. In 2002 the Special Rapporteur drew the government’s attention to repeated attacks on religious minorities, including dozens of killings and rapes, and destruction of places of worship. The situation has improved since then, and it would be useful for the government to have that confirmed, and to get the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on what more needs to be done to protect the minorities against the extremists
The AL government has avoided some of the worst effects of the global economic downturn, according to the World Bank, and in a Daily Star opinion poll last Thursday, more than four fifths of the respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the first 100 days of Sheikh Hasina’s premiership. The main area of concern was the law and order situation, and particularly the disorders in the colleges from internal strife in the BCL, the Awami League’s student wing. Its good that two of the ringleaders have now been arrested, and that the leaders of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad have been charged with complicity in the Ramna Park bomb outrage of 2001. Ten people were killed and dozens injured as they celebrated Bengali New Year, a festival considered anti-Islamic by the extremists. One member of this group is alleged to have supplied the grenades for the attack on Sheikh Hasina on August 2004 when 21 people were killed.
In fact, the biggest challenge to the AL government, and to the stability and prosperity of Bangladesh in the future, is the continued menace of underground extremist organisations such as the HuJi and the JMB, said to number 100,000 supporters. These people are dedicated to the violent overthrow of democracy, and its replacement by a theocratic dictatorship based on what they imagine to be the rule of the Prophet and the two generations after him. In the process they are prepared to slaughter anybody who disagrees with them, and to ruin the lives of ordinary people including good Muslims, by discouraging investment. Bangladesh does have other major problems – a population growth rate of over 2%, requiring huge resources just to keep up the same standards of education, health and other public services, and the displacement of 30 million people caused by a global warming rise of less than a metre in the sea level. To cope with these challenges will require leadership, social cohesion and professional skills, not just over the lifetime of the AL government, but over the generation to come. We can’t look that far ahead this morning, but we may try to see whether, in the first 120 days, they are setting out in the right direction.
Committee Room 3, House of Lords, 11.00 April 21, 2009
Introductory remarks by Eric Avebury
This is our first seminar since the elections at the end of last year brought the Awami League Grand Alliance to power with an overwhelming majority. Its also the first we have held jointly with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Bangladesh, and I am delighted to share the platform with the chair of the Group, Baroness Uddin, and a galaxy of. eminent speakers who will be looking at the new government’s programme and the current situation from a number of different viewpoints.
My first and most agreeable duty is to congratulate the people of Bangladesh and the former caretaker government on holding free, fair and peaceful elections with a massive turnout, far above the levels attained in the UK. The crucial promise in the AL manifesto was the establishment of good governance, but both parties were committed to the independence of the judiciary, strong measures against corruption, and the suppression of terrorism. Whether there can be the degree of collaboration between government and opposition that’s necessary to make Parliamentary democracy work, an ingredient lacking in the winner take all past, is still doubtful and I look forward to hearing what is said on that.
Is it sensible to evict the leader of the opposition from the house she has occupied since the assassination of her husband 28 years ago, whatever the legal position may be? A magnanimous attitude might help to secure the approval by the opposition of the reforms that are likely to be needed in the paramilitary forces, when the committee of inquiry reports in a couple of weeks time on the rising in the BDR. There have been mutinies before in the Ansar as well as the BDR, but the merciless slaughter of senior army officers was unprecedented, and the Pilkhana massacre raises questions about the whole system of supplementary armed forces; not only whether the BDF should be restructured or disbanded, but what should be the functions and relationships to the army of the RAB, the Ansar and the border guards as well
The government had declared that killings in custody were no longer tolerated, and it did seem that RAB had turned over a new leaf . But this month has seen a ‘cross-fire’ death, like the hundreds that have occurred in the five years of RAB’s existence, and six of the key witnesses to the Pilkhana massacre have also died mysteriously. The forces of law and order need to be utterly reliable and above suspicion when they are grappling with severe threats arising from organised crime and terrorism.
In a few days’ time a delegation of Home Office and FCO officials will be in Dhaka, to sign a long-delayed anti-terror deal with the government of Bangladesh. They need to be assured that the rights of suspects are upheld, and that confessions or witness statements aren’t being extorted by the use of torture. Our own government’s complicity in acts of torture committed abroad is already being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner following allegations in the case of Binyam Mohamed, and we need to be scrupulously careful, particularly where British terrorists are arrested in Bangladesh, that evidence of their activities is not tainted.
At our previous seminar last October 7 Sheikh Hasina reiterated her commitment to the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord of 1997, and emphasised the importance of the Land Commission. These policies were in the AL Manifesto; as co-chair of the CHT Commission I discussed them with the Prime Minister when I was in Dhaka two months ago, and we look forward to concrete progress before the CHTC next visits Bangladesh in the summer.
The AL Manifesto promises that terrorism, discriminatory treatment and human rights violations against religious and ethnic minorities and indigenous people would come to an end permanently. There is to be equal opportunity in access to public services, though it remains to be seen how this is to be enforced, and what remedies are to be provided for individuals who still encounter discrimination on grounds of their ethnic origin, religion, language or nationality. Any discriminatory laws and other arrangements are to be repealed, and in education and employment, there is a promise of facilities to remedy the disadvantage experienced by religious minorities and indigenous people.
At the UN’s Review of Bangladesh in February, there were criticisms of the treatment of other indigenous peoples, of religious and ethnic minorities, and of women. There are six requests outstanding from the Human Rights Council for invitations, including one from the Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom, submitted five years ago, but still with no date set. In 2002 the Special Rapporteur drew the government’s attention to repeated attacks on religious minorities, including dozens of killings and rapes, and destruction of places of worship. The situation has improved since then, and it would be useful for the government to have that confirmed, and to get the recommendations of the Special Rapporteur on what more needs to be done to protect the minorities against the extremists
The AL government has avoided some of the worst effects of the global economic downturn, according to the World Bank, and in a Daily Star opinion poll last Thursday, more than four fifths of the respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the first 100 days of Sheikh Hasina’s premiership. The main area of concern was the law and order situation, and particularly the disorders in the colleges from internal strife in the BCL, the Awami League’s student wing. Its good that two of the ringleaders have now been arrested, and that the leaders of the banned Harkat-ul-Jihad have been charged with complicity in the Ramna Park bomb outrage of 2001. Ten people were killed and dozens injured as they celebrated Bengali New Year, a festival considered anti-Islamic by the extremists. One member of this group is alleged to have supplied the grenades for the attack on Sheikh Hasina on August 2004 when 21 people were killed.
In fact, the biggest challenge to the AL government, and to the stability and prosperity of Bangladesh in the future, is the continued menace of underground extremist organisations such as the HuJi and the JMB, said to number 100,000 supporters. These people are dedicated to the violent overthrow of democracy, and its replacement by a theocratic dictatorship based on what they imagine to be the rule of the Prophet and the two generations after him. In the process they are prepared to slaughter anybody who disagrees with them, and to ruin the lives of ordinary people including good Muslims, by discouraging investment. Bangladesh does have other major problems – a population growth rate of over 2%, requiring huge resources just to keep up the same standards of education, health and other public services, and the displacement of 30 million people caused by a global warming rise of less than a metre in the sea level. To cope with these challenges will require leadership, social cohesion and professional skills, not just over the lifetime of the AL government, but over the generation to come. We can’t look that far ahead this morning, but we may try to see whether, in the first 120 days, they are setting out in the right direction.
Report on Monday's seminar
Daily Star, Dhaka
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
UK MPs for int'l standard war crime trial
Star Online Report
The war crimes trial in Bangladesh should meet international standard, said some members of The House of Lords, the upper house of Britain's parliament, yesterday.
The British parliamentarians at a seminar also suggested appointing an international judge for the trial process, reports ATN Bangla.
The speakers at the seminar also termed the first hundred days of the Bangladesh government satisfactory.
The seminar also discussed several issues including recent BDR mutiny, cancellation of the lease of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Dhaka cantonment house, law and order situation and extremism in the country.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
UK MPs for int'l standard war crime trial
Star Online Report
The war crimes trial in Bangladesh should meet international standard, said some members of The House of Lords, the upper house of Britain's parliament, yesterday.
The British parliamentarians at a seminar also suggested appointing an international judge for the trial process, reports ATN Bangla.
The speakers at the seminar also termed the first hundred days of the Bangladesh government satisfactory.
The seminar also discussed several issues including recent BDR mutiny, cancellation of the lease of BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia's Dhaka cantonment house, law and order situation and extremism in the country.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The necklace
A tantalising story that needs more research:
My aunt Victoria Woods has a necklace which was left to her by Aunt Vivian, the daughter of Nellie Grant and Algernon Sartoris, who died in 1933 . The necklace was kept until her 18th birthday, May 29, 1935, so she never had the chance to ask Aunt Vivian about its provenance, but the history related by her mother, my grandmother, Margaret Lady Stanley of Alderley (grand daughter of Adelaide Sartoris and daughter of Mary Theodosia Evans Gordon nee Sartoris) was that the necklace was given to Julia Dent Grant by emissaries of the Mexican Emperor Maximilian, as an inducement, to persuade her to influence the General not to support Juarez and the Republicans in the Mexican civil war. Grant of course had a close interest in Mexico stemming from his service there in 1845-47.
If the story is true, the bribe must have been tendered some time before the end of the US Civil War on April 9, 1865 , but after Maximilian came to the throne on June 10, 1864. When Lee surrendered, quite a few Confederates fled across the border and took service under Maximilian, and Grant actively supported the Republicans, with the tacit support of President Johnson. Less than a month after the surrender at Appomatox, Grant sent Sheridan with 42,000 men to the Rio Grande, hoping that a show of strength would persuade Napoleon III to withdraw the French troops propping up Maximilian’s puppet régime . By that time it is inconceivable that the Emperor would have sent a delegation to Grant, or to have sought to influence him through his wife.
Ishbel Ross, Julia Dent Grant’s biographer, says that among the wedding presents given to Nellie was ‘a necklace and earrings of diamonds’ , but they are not in the long list of presents in the New York Herald . The Herald reporter says he was the only journalist invited to the great event at the White House, and if the diamonds were on display with the rest of the presents, he could not have missed them. Perhaps they were concealed because of the awkward problem of how to explain where they came from. The Grants did have a reputation for accepting unsuitable gifts, but if my grandmother’s story was accurate, it could have been really embarrassing.
Eric Avebury
September 20, 2004
My aunt Victoria Woods has a necklace which was left to her by Aunt Vivian, the daughter of Nellie Grant and Algernon Sartoris, who died in 1933 . The necklace was kept until her 18th birthday, May 29, 1935, so she never had the chance to ask Aunt Vivian about its provenance, but the history related by her mother, my grandmother, Margaret Lady Stanley of Alderley (grand daughter of Adelaide Sartoris and daughter of Mary Theodosia Evans Gordon nee Sartoris) was that the necklace was given to Julia Dent Grant by emissaries of the Mexican Emperor Maximilian, as an inducement, to persuade her to influence the General not to support Juarez and the Republicans in the Mexican civil war. Grant of course had a close interest in Mexico stemming from his service there in 1845-47.
If the story is true, the bribe must have been tendered some time before the end of the US Civil War on April 9, 1865 , but after Maximilian came to the throne on June 10, 1864. When Lee surrendered, quite a few Confederates fled across the border and took service under Maximilian, and Grant actively supported the Republicans, with the tacit support of President Johnson. Less than a month after the surrender at Appomatox, Grant sent Sheridan with 42,000 men to the Rio Grande, hoping that a show of strength would persuade Napoleon III to withdraw the French troops propping up Maximilian’s puppet régime . By that time it is inconceivable that the Emperor would have sent a delegation to Grant, or to have sought to influence him through his wife.
Ishbel Ross, Julia Dent Grant’s biographer, says that among the wedding presents given to Nellie was ‘a necklace and earrings of diamonds’ , but they are not in the long list of presents in the New York Herald . The Herald reporter says he was the only journalist invited to the great event at the White House, and if the diamonds were on display with the rest of the presents, he could not have missed them. Perhaps they were concealed because of the awkward problem of how to explain where they came from. The Grants did have a reputation for accepting unsuitable gifts, but if my grandmother’s story was accurate, it could have been really embarrassing.
Eric Avebury
September 20, 2004
Recess over
Tomorrow Parliament resumes, and its a busy week ahead. In the morning I'm chairing a seminar in Committee Room 3 on the current political situation in Bangladesh, followed by lunch with an academic who is hoping to start a Kurdish Studies Programme at SOAS.
JW has beaten me 2-0 twice in a row, bringing the score up to 101-100. After two years of keeping the records, I suspect that my eyesight and agility may not be improving, whereas his may be. Fifty eight years difference between us may possibly make a slight difference.
We had tea today with Rhoda Torres (see above), who used to work for me more than 30 years ago, when we were at Eccleston Square Mews. She still lives round the corner from there, in a flat with views on two sides, overlooking the traffic lights at the end of Ebury Bridge. Her daughter Diana, a little girl in those days, has a high powered job in New York.
JW has beaten me 2-0 twice in a row, bringing the score up to 101-100. After two years of keeping the records, I suspect that my eyesight and agility may not be improving, whereas his may be. Fifty eight years difference between us may possibly make a slight difference.
We had tea today with Rhoda Torres (see above), who used to work for me more than 30 years ago, when we were at Eccleston Square Mews. She still lives round the corner from there, in a flat with views on two sides, overlooking the traffic lights at the end of Ebury Bridge. Her daughter Diana, a little girl in those days, has a high powered job in New York.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Blogs
There is much ado in the media about the use of the blogosphere for 'political' purposes, which seems to mean almost entirely for attacking other parties and their members. We read that the three principal Tory bloggers get about 100,000 hit a month, while a leading Labour blogger, Tom Harris MP, notches up only 22,000. My own sitemeter recorded a paltry 1,497 hits in April, but sorry, readers will have to look elsewhere for scandal.
Ping-pong today 1-1, cumulative score Dad 101 JW 96
Ping-pong today 1-1, cumulative score Dad 101 JW 96
Friday, April 10, 2009
Reuter on Bahrain press conference
Bahrain opposition wants EU, UN monitors at "show trial"
Wed Apr 8, 2009 2:03pm EDT
* EU, U.N. asked to attend trial of government opponents
* British lawmaker: protesters face "merciless onslaught"
* Bahrain minister says trial is not politically motivated
By Peter Griffiths
LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - International monitors should attend the trial in Bahrain of opposition figures accused of plotting to overthrow the Gulf state's government to ensure they receive a fair hearing, their supporters said on Wednesday.
British lawmaker Eric Lubbock, vice chairman of the human rights group in the upper house of parliament, called the trial "an iniquitous act of persecution against those who stand up for human rights".
After weeks of violent anti-government protests, he said, Bahrain's Sunni Arab leaders had grown "increasingly ruthless" and observers from the European Union and United Nations were needed at the trial in the island kingdom.
He told a London news conference he feared the fate of Hassan Mushaima, leader of the Shi'ite opposition group Haq, would be sealed in a political "show trial" manipulated by the ruling family in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet.
Bahrain strongly denies those claims. It says Mushaima and others will receive a fair trial and rejects claims the hearings are politically motivated.
"Potentially very serious terrorist attacks were uncovered and prevented in December, and the government has a duty to investigate and prosecute individuals against whom there is evidence," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters.
Saeed Shehabi, of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, an opposition group, told the news conference: "The presence of EU observers in the forthcoming trials will be crucial."
Lubbock said some anti-government protesters had been injured by police and some of those arrested were tortured.
EU representatives attended the last hearing and should attend the next court date on April 28, and the U.N. torture envoy should also try to go, Lubbock said. (Additional reporting by Frederik Richter in Manama)
Wed Apr 8, 2009 2:03pm EDT
* EU, U.N. asked to attend trial of government opponents
* British lawmaker: protesters face "merciless onslaught"
* Bahrain minister says trial is not politically motivated
By Peter Griffiths
LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) - International monitors should attend the trial in Bahrain of opposition figures accused of plotting to overthrow the Gulf state's government to ensure they receive a fair hearing, their supporters said on Wednesday.
British lawmaker Eric Lubbock, vice chairman of the human rights group in the upper house of parliament, called the trial "an iniquitous act of persecution against those who stand up for human rights".
After weeks of violent anti-government protests, he said, Bahrain's Sunni Arab leaders had grown "increasingly ruthless" and observers from the European Union and United Nations were needed at the trial in the island kingdom.
He told a London news conference he feared the fate of Hassan Mushaima, leader of the Shi'ite opposition group Haq, would be sealed in a political "show trial" manipulated by the ruling family in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet.
Bahrain strongly denies those claims. It says Mushaima and others will receive a fair trial and rejects claims the hearings are politically motivated.
"Potentially very serious terrorist attacks were uncovered and prevented in December, and the government has a duty to investigate and prosecute individuals against whom there is evidence," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement to Reuters.
Saeed Shehabi, of the Bahrain Freedom Movement, an opposition group, told the news conference: "The presence of EU observers in the forthcoming trials will be crucial."
Lubbock said some anti-government protesters had been injured by police and some of those arrested were tortured.
EU representatives attended the last hearing and should attend the next court date on April 28, and the U.N. torture envoy should also try to go, Lubbock said. (Additional reporting by Frederik Richter in Manama)
Wednesday, April 08, 2009
Seminar on Bahrain
Today we held very successful seminar on the political and human rights crises in Bahrain at Millbank House, a Parliamentary annex. Our regular guest Dr Abdul Jalil Al-Singace wasn’t able to attend because he is one of the main defendants in the show trial, but he sent us an excellent video statement. We also had a video statement from Maitham Al-Sheikh, who was severely tortured during his 15 months in prison and had to be released for urgent hospital treatment. Then we had a short account of the March 25 court proceedings from Dr David Gottlieb of the Islamic Human Rights Commission; an analysis of the origins of the present crisis by Dr Saeed Shehabi, and comments on the role of women in the popular uprising by Zainab Meftah. There was a general discussion, and it was agreed that we would urge the Czech EU Presidency to commission an observer to attend the adjourned court proceedings on April 28, and that we would contact the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, asking him to investigate the many allegations of torture made by detainees.
My introductory remarks:
The Paradoxes of the Kingdom of Silence
This is an unhappy time for the Kingdom of Silence we are here to discuss, and there is also silence in the western media about the escalating crisis in Bahrain. There is negative feedback between the harsh and repressive acts of the authorities, and the growing resistance of ordinary people on the streets. More people including many schoolchildren are being injured by the security forces and foreign mercenaries, and we have photographs of their injuries. More people are being detained, and many of those detained are being tortured, including the victims of the show trial of 35 who are accused of acts of terror.. The main defendant Mr Hassan Mushaima has been a frequent attendant at our previous seminars, and we strongly believe the trial is an attempt to stop him engaging in political activities. The Haq movement, of which he is leader, is the main
opposition to the regime, and makes no secret of the fact that it wants constitutional reform to replace the absolute monarchy by a democratic system with a genuine Parliament, independent courts of law, freedom of expression, and an end to the demographic engineering exposed by Dr Salah al-Bandar three years ago.
For upholding principles that we say we support all over the world, Mr Mushaima, and our other good friend Abdujalil al-Singace, also a regular guest here, face a trial which has been severely criticised by Human Rights Watch, and I'll come onto that in a minute. But first I want to tell you about a message I had from Dr Singace yesterday, which he was able to send as the only one of the 22 arrested who was granted bail.A friend of his, a professor from the Hoover Institution, a well-known think tank which is part of Stanford University in the US was on a cruise ship that called in at Manama, and he invited Dr Al-Singace to lunch on board the ship with him and his academic colleagues.
When Dr Al-Singace presented himself at the port, officials first said they needed an instruction in writing from the ship's captain or the travel agents to allow him on board. The travel agent then arrived, with a list of visitors that included the name of Dr Al-Singace. But he was still detained by port officals in a security room for an hour and a half, until a senior government official turned up, to announce that the Foreign Ministry had issued an instruction giving permission for only three persons to board the ship and speak to the travellers. These were a member of the ruling family who is an assistant under-secretary of the Foreign Ministry; a Mrs Allison Samaan, Deputy Head of the Shura Council, and Dr Mansoor alJamri, editor-in-chief of Al-Wasat newspaper, tolerated by the government because he knows what not to say on sensitive topics.
The American professor was dismayed, that his idea of asking Dr Al-Singace to speak to the visiting academics was hijacked by the regime, and turned into a circus to polish their image. The professor learned, by hints dropped in his discussions with officials, that Dr Al-Singace was not to be allowed to speak to the visitors for political reasons, but none of
them had the guts to come out and say so plainly. So finally, the professor gave up the idea of having lunch on board as had been agreed with the tour organisers and the ship's agent and decided to come on shore for lunch with Dr Al-Singace. As they were leaving the port area together, they came face to face with Mr Al-Khalifa, who was being greeted with kisses on the nose by port officials, and Ms Samaan, who were waiting to be escorted in their Mercedes to regale the Americans with a fairy story about the 'democracy, transparency and openness' enjoyed by citizens of Bahrain.
Now to return to reality. At the end of last year, the state-controlled TV screened a group of young opposition activists who had been held incommunicado for 11 days confessing to acts of violence at a Haq rally. They said that Mr Mushaima had told them to do this, as part of a plot to overthrow the government, but when they first came to court on February 23, their lawyer said they had been tortured. They said they had been beaten with water hoses on their feet, and given electric shocks, especially on their genitals, and I have asked her whether she has submitted a formal complaint to the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak.
At the last hearing on March 25, the court unprecedentedly agreed to reinvestigate the case, to order an end to the solitary confinement of the defendants, and to appoint a medical committee to investigate the torture allegations. The presence in the court of representatives of the EU Presidency, as well as numerous human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, may have had some bearing on this outcome, and I suggest this meeting ask the EU Presidency to attend the resumed hearing on April 28.
But this trial, though it is indeed an iniquitous act of persecution against those who stand up for human rights in Bahrain, is only one aspect of the increasing ruthlessness of the hereditary dictatorship. Seeing that the population has lost patience waiting for the reforms that never came after a controlled Parliament with no real power was established, the al-Khalifas have clamped down on every expression of dissent, using violence on the streets, blocking access to human rights websites, and spying on members of the opposition.
Even the US, Bahrain's staunch ally, has to criticise the regime in the State Department's report on human rights. They say that in 2008
“Citizens did not have the right to change their government The government restricted civil liberties, including freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association and some religious practices. Domestic violence against women persisted, as did discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, nationality, and sect, particularly against the Shia majority
population”.
Yesterday the Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to the King protesting against the recent deterioration of press freedom in Bahrain and the government's ongoing campaign against critical or opposition Web sites and blogs. The crackdown against those sites has resulted in dozens of them being blocked inside the kingdom, including the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.
The State Department report had already detailed mass arrests of demonstrators and their allegations of torture from the whole of last year, and defects in the court system now glaringly apparent to the whole world. The king appoints all judges by royal decree, and he is chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council which supervises the work of the courts
and public prosecutors. There is no right of access by defendants to evidence held by the government.
What can we do to persuade our own Government to be as plain as that, instead of being so careful to avoid commenting on human rights violations in Bahrain, as they have been ever since the Parliamentary Human Rights Group first took up the problems in January 1994? In 1996 we published our correspondence with Foreign Office Ministers under the
title A Brick Wall, and you would have to look at that compilation to see how Ministers evaded expressing any opinion on the disastrous violations of human rights over those years. But when Labour came to power in 1997, it can't be said there was any change of attitude.
When Sheikh Hamad succeeded as ruler, there may have been some temporary grounds for hope of genuine reforms, but it soon turned out that what the ruling family was after was an imitation democracy, with the real power kept in the hands of the king, his uncle, the longest serving Prime Minister in the world, and the rest of the al-Khalifa family, who get appointed to nearly all the highest offices. But the Foreign Office resolutely ignores both the fact that Bahrain continues to be a hereditary dictatorship, and the unscrupulous methods used by the regime to sustain itself in power. Their annual report on human rights for 2008, unlike the State Department's, contains not a word about unlawful detention or torture, or the severe discrimination against the Shi'a.
We shouldn't ever give up on trying to persuade Whitehall to adopt a more robust attitude to the crimes of the al-Khalifas against their own people, but at the same time perhaps we need to concentrate more on Brussels, with the Czech Presidency of the EU at least having an observer at the trial. And the European Parliament has just passed a resolution
calling for the proclamation of 23 August as a Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
With the European elections coming up in June, why don't we send a briefing to all the candidates here in the UK on the situation in Bahrain? They could ask the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, to issue a statement on the administration of justice in Bahrain, and more widely on the causes of unrest. The tension between the royal family, terrified of losing one iota of their power, and the people, frustrated by their total exclusion from policy-making, can only lead to instability in a key state of the region, and that must surely be of great concern to Europe.
Finally, we need to activate the UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures, which could play a larger role in highlighting what's going on now. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited the country 8 years ago, shortly after the government had repealed the emergency legislation which had been used to keep opposition leaders in custody for years in the 90s. Now that people are being detained under fabricated
charges, its time for the Working Group to take another look. The Special Rapporteur on Torture, who has never been to Bahrain, should be seeking an invitation. The Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers has an obvious interest in the current situation, as does the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. Above all, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Ms Asma Jehangir, should investigate the systematic discrimination against the Shi'a, mentioned by the US State Department.
Let us send a message of solidarity to our brothers Hassan Mushaima, Abdul Jalil Al Singace, and all other victims of the regime's persecution. Lets resolve to step up the campaign to protect all the people of Bahrain against the merciless onslaught by the hereditary dictatorship, and to mobilise the international human rights process in their defence.
My introductory remarks:
The Paradoxes of the Kingdom of Silence
This is an unhappy time for the Kingdom of Silence we are here to discuss, and there is also silence in the western media about the escalating crisis in Bahrain. There is negative feedback between the harsh and repressive acts of the authorities, and the growing resistance of ordinary people on the streets. More people including many schoolchildren are being injured by the security forces and foreign mercenaries, and we have photographs of their injuries. More people are being detained, and many of those detained are being tortured, including the victims of the show trial of 35 who are accused of acts of terror.. The main defendant Mr Hassan Mushaima has been a frequent attendant at our previous seminars, and we strongly believe the trial is an attempt to stop him engaging in political activities. The Haq movement, of which he is leader, is the main
opposition to the regime, and makes no secret of the fact that it wants constitutional reform to replace the absolute monarchy by a democratic system with a genuine Parliament, independent courts of law, freedom of expression, and an end to the demographic engineering exposed by Dr Salah al-Bandar three years ago.
For upholding principles that we say we support all over the world, Mr Mushaima, and our other good friend Abdujalil al-Singace, also a regular guest here, face a trial which has been severely criticised by Human Rights Watch, and I'll come onto that in a minute. But first I want to tell you about a message I had from Dr Singace yesterday, which he was able to send as the only one of the 22 arrested who was granted bail.A friend of his, a professor from the Hoover Institution, a well-known think tank which is part of Stanford University in the US was on a cruise ship that called in at Manama, and he invited Dr Al-Singace to lunch on board the ship with him and his academic colleagues.
When Dr Al-Singace presented himself at the port, officials first said they needed an instruction in writing from the ship's captain or the travel agents to allow him on board. The travel agent then arrived, with a list of visitors that included the name of Dr Al-Singace. But he was still detained by port officals in a security room for an hour and a half, until a senior government official turned up, to announce that the Foreign Ministry had issued an instruction giving permission for only three persons to board the ship and speak to the travellers. These were a member of the ruling family who is an assistant under-secretary of the Foreign Ministry; a Mrs Allison Samaan, Deputy Head of the Shura Council, and Dr Mansoor alJamri, editor-in-chief of Al-Wasat newspaper, tolerated by the government because he knows what not to say on sensitive topics.
The American professor was dismayed, that his idea of asking Dr Al-Singace to speak to the visiting academics was hijacked by the regime, and turned into a circus to polish their image. The professor learned, by hints dropped in his discussions with officials, that Dr Al-Singace was not to be allowed to speak to the visitors for political reasons, but none of
them had the guts to come out and say so plainly. So finally, the professor gave up the idea of having lunch on board as had been agreed with the tour organisers and the ship's agent and decided to come on shore for lunch with Dr Al-Singace. As they were leaving the port area together, they came face to face with Mr Al-Khalifa, who was being greeted with kisses on the nose by port officials, and Ms Samaan, who were waiting to be escorted in their Mercedes to regale the Americans with a fairy story about the 'democracy, transparency and openness' enjoyed by citizens of Bahrain.
Now to return to reality. At the end of last year, the state-controlled TV screened a group of young opposition activists who had been held incommunicado for 11 days confessing to acts of violence at a Haq rally. They said that Mr Mushaima had told them to do this, as part of a plot to overthrow the government, but when they first came to court on February 23, their lawyer said they had been tortured. They said they had been beaten with water hoses on their feet, and given electric shocks, especially on their genitals, and I have asked her whether she has submitted a formal complaint to the UN Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak.
At the last hearing on March 25, the court unprecedentedly agreed to reinvestigate the case, to order an end to the solitary confinement of the defendants, and to appoint a medical committee to investigate the torture allegations. The presence in the court of representatives of the EU Presidency, as well as numerous human rights NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and the Islamic Human Rights Commission, may have had some bearing on this outcome, and I suggest this meeting ask the EU Presidency to attend the resumed hearing on April 28.
But this trial, though it is indeed an iniquitous act of persecution against those who stand up for human rights in Bahrain, is only one aspect of the increasing ruthlessness of the hereditary dictatorship. Seeing that the population has lost patience waiting for the reforms that never came after a controlled Parliament with no real power was established, the al-Khalifas have clamped down on every expression of dissent, using violence on the streets, blocking access to human rights websites, and spying on members of the opposition.
Even the US, Bahrain's staunch ally, has to criticise the regime in the State Department's report on human rights. They say that in 2008
“Citizens did not have the right to change their government The government restricted civil liberties, including freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association and some religious practices. Domestic violence against women persisted, as did discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, nationality, and sect, particularly against the Shia majority
population”.
Yesterday the Washington-based Committee to Protect Journalists wrote to the King protesting against the recent deterioration of press freedom in Bahrain and the government's ongoing campaign against critical or opposition Web sites and blogs. The crackdown against those sites has resulted in dozens of them being blocked inside the kingdom, including the Bahrain Center for Human Rights.
The State Department report had already detailed mass arrests of demonstrators and their allegations of torture from the whole of last year, and defects in the court system now glaringly apparent to the whole world. The king appoints all judges by royal decree, and he is chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council which supervises the work of the courts
and public prosecutors. There is no right of access by defendants to evidence held by the government.
What can we do to persuade our own Government to be as plain as that, instead of being so careful to avoid commenting on human rights violations in Bahrain, as they have been ever since the Parliamentary Human Rights Group first took up the problems in January 1994? In 1996 we published our correspondence with Foreign Office Ministers under the
title A Brick Wall, and you would have to look at that compilation to see how Ministers evaded expressing any opinion on the disastrous violations of human rights over those years. But when Labour came to power in 1997, it can't be said there was any change of attitude.
When Sheikh Hamad succeeded as ruler, there may have been some temporary grounds for hope of genuine reforms, but it soon turned out that what the ruling family was after was an imitation democracy, with the real power kept in the hands of the king, his uncle, the longest serving Prime Minister in the world, and the rest of the al-Khalifa family, who get appointed to nearly all the highest offices. But the Foreign Office resolutely ignores both the fact that Bahrain continues to be a hereditary dictatorship, and the unscrupulous methods used by the regime to sustain itself in power. Their annual report on human rights for 2008, unlike the State Department's, contains not a word about unlawful detention or torture, or the severe discrimination against the Shi'a.
We shouldn't ever give up on trying to persuade Whitehall to adopt a more robust attitude to the crimes of the al-Khalifas against their own people, but at the same time perhaps we need to concentrate more on Brussels, with the Czech Presidency of the EU at least having an observer at the trial. And the European Parliament has just passed a resolution
calling for the proclamation of 23 August as a Europe-wide Remembrance Day for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.
With the European elections coming up in June, why don't we send a briefing to all the candidates here in the UK on the situation in Bahrain? They could ask the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, to issue a statement on the administration of justice in Bahrain, and more widely on the causes of unrest. The tension between the royal family, terrified of losing one iota of their power, and the people, frustrated by their total exclusion from policy-making, can only lead to instability in a key state of the region, and that must surely be of great concern to Europe.
Finally, we need to activate the UN Human Rights Council Special Procedures, which could play a larger role in highlighting what's going on now. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention visited the country 8 years ago, shortly after the government had repealed the emergency legislation which had been used to keep opposition leaders in custody for years in the 90s. Now that people are being detained under fabricated
charges, its time for the Working Group to take another look. The Special Rapporteur on Torture, who has never been to Bahrain, should be seeking an invitation. The Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers has an obvious interest in the current situation, as does the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders. Above all, the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Belief, Ms Asma Jehangir, should investigate the systematic discrimination against the Shi'a, mentioned by the US State Department.
Let us send a message of solidarity to our brothers Hassan Mushaima, Abdul Jalil Al Singace, and all other victims of the regime's persecution. Lets resolve to step up the campaign to protect all the people of Bahrain against the merciless onslaught by the hereditary dictatorship, and to mobilise the international human rights process in their defence.
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